Equal-Opportunity Gags?

But who's going to do Hillary Clinton if she ends up in the White House? Maybe no one, according to several comedy insiders who say that ladies and lampooning just don't mix.

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"We don't like to make fun of women. We have to really be pushed to do it," explained comedienne Traci Skene, publisher of SheckyMagazine.com, an e-zine for and about comedians.

"It's difficult to make fun of a woman without it coming off as anti-woman," said comedian Doug Hecox, who has a comedy blog, dougfun.com.

True, when women are the butt of the joke, the funny often seems more cruel than comical -- like at the Washington Press Club Foundation dinner on Feb. 6, when supertanned Republican Rep. John A. Boehner of Ohio made fun of Washington Post reporter Juliet Eilperin's crazy '90s-era hairstyle. (Nobody laughed.)

Everybody can laugh at President Bush's "lack of intellectual curiosity." Not so when it comes to first lady Laura Bush? Or House Speaker Nancy Pelosi? Or Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice?

"Saturday Night Live" cast member Kristen Wiig as Pelosi (the clip of which mysteriously went missing from YouTube.com, then popped up again) was hilarious.

But that opening sketch wasn't based on a Pelosi caricature per se -- even though Wiig had the speaker's perpetually surprised eyes down pat. It was about the 8th District of California, where evidence of "San Francisco values," such as role-playing and leather chaps, abound.

Since the show debuted in 1975, "SNL" has been on the leading edge of presidential parody, having given us Gerald Ford as "First Klutz," George H.W. Bush as thin-lipped and the current president as a lovable frat boy. Some go so far as to say that Ferrell's impersonation of Dubya as the president most likely to play flip cup might have helped win him the '04 election. Maybe.

Will Farrell playing Dubya on YouTube

The elder Bush even referred to his "Saturday Night" alter ego at Ford's funeral in December. "I'd tell you more about that, but as Dana Carvey would say, 'Not gonna do it. Wouldn't be prudent,'" he quipped.

Wiig, who also does a spot-on Lynne Cheney, is a front-runner to take on the commander-in-Chanel role should Clinton win in November 2008, but the world might not be ready. Some comedians have an idea why.

No one ever made fun of former Rep. Shirley Chisholm's lisp, according to McKim, because a) she was a woman and b) she was the first black woman elected to Congress. A double whammy!

"Women are minorities," said comedian Frank King, who began perfecting his John Edwards impression as soon as the former senator from North Carolina hit the campaign trail in late December.

"It's more socially acceptable for a minority to make fun of a minority," he added, noting that as a "6-foot-tall brown-haired white guy," he doesn't necessarily have a lock on the feminine funny bone.

But not even all comediennes want to step into another woman's shoes. Girl-on-girl gaffes can be just as biting or even more so than a man's ribbing. ("Mean Girls"!) Plus there are few female comedians to start with, making the pool of those willing to delve into politics even more shallow.

Take today's leading political mockumenters, Bill Maher, Dennis Miller, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert -- not a feminine pronoun among them.

"We've gotten so politically correct, sometimes it's scary," said Kathy Walker-Koch, a comedienne/impersonator who lives in Las Vegas. She does Barbra Streisand, Cher, Joan Rivers and Britney Spears, among others.

Walker-Koch believes in equal-opportunity gags and has one about Clinton that killed recently:

What's the "Hillary Clinton Special" at KFC? Two large thighs, a couple of small breasts and a left wing.

Ouch! King would never do that joke, but Walker-Koch has no qualms about making fun of the New York senator's physical characteristics, because she doesn't "mean anything by it," and it's all in good fun, she said.

"You're allowed to make fun of a woman if she's not very attractive," said Skene, who found Ferrell's take on former Attorney General Janet Reno "devastating." (" Janet Reno's Dance Party" was a recurring sketch on "SNL," with Ferrell clad in Reno's signature Dress Barn-ish boxy blue suits.)

"There's a rule in comedy, unwritten," King explained. "You can make a fat guy joke, but it's very different to make a fat woman joke,"

A while back, King had a great idea for a joke. It went like this: A study has just been released that says overweight women have a higher sex drive than skinny women. (Comedic pause.) Well that's because they have to drive farther for sex. (Ba-da-bum.)

"I tried it the first time, and it went nowhere, and when I tried it with a fat guy, it killed," King said. "It's a comedy dynamic that dates way back."

On the other hand, no one seems to have a problem skewering conservative women, namely "Mann Coulter" (as some comedians have dubbed the chief GOP mouthpiece).

"I think its OK to make fun of a woman if she is as onerous as Ann Coulter," said King. "You dress up and make fun of Mother Teresa, you got trouble."

King wants to join forces with comedian Bill Pietrucha (who's been playing Coulter in drag) for a promotional video titled "He Said, She Screeched!"

With Vanity Fair publishing articles such as "Why Women Aren't Funny," men in drag dominating the field and Wiig yet to do more Pelosi parody, the outlook on spoofing the missus isn't clear.

Still, Clinton shouldn't rule out coming face to face with her doppelganger just yet.